Category Archives: TrackerBox

TrackerBox, Writing

Where I’m At!

Today, I finished up porting over all the importers for TrackerBox Mac. I start on the interface on Monday. There were a lot more of them than I remembered (Amazon KDP has 9 importers all by itself), and a few of them required some very specific support code.

In my afternoons (after busting away at TrackerBox in the mornings), I’ve slowly been working on getting a new novella ready for publication. Making Up Lost Time is the first of what I hope to be multiple stories published this year. I know I’ve teased this shit in the past, over and over, but I really have some hope that I’m coming out of this long slow period. I won’t be spoiling what I’m planning to work on, or how much I hope to get done, but I can assure you, it’ll be more than I got done last year (at least when it comes to writing).

StoryBox, TrackerBox

In-App Problem Reporting Tool May Be Going Away (And Kickstarter News)

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As I write this, there are 72 hours left in the TrackerBox Mac Kickstarter, and it’s just shy of $9500 in total funding. I am continually amazed and humbled at all of your help. Please keep helping spread the word, though. This is the last time you’ll be able to get TrackerBox for $75, and it’s also your only opportunity to get in on the beta for the Mac version.

Now, on to the meat of this post.

I learned today that FogBugz is getting rebranded as something called Manuscript. I also learned that the free tier I’ve been using to have the form in the app you can fill out when you have a problem will be going away. There’s no information about it on their new site, and the pricing doesn’t make sense for me. It’s not expensive, exactly, but as the only user of the system, it doesn’t bring me enough value at that price point.

So I’ll be trying a few other things to see how they work while I wait to get definitive word on whether the solution I already have is actually going away. At the moment, I’m hoping that it sticks around long enough that I can finish TrackerBox Mac before having to tackle the problem directly.

TrackerBox

TrackerBox Mac Kickstarter Reached the Goal

TrackerBox Mac - Track Your Book Sales on OSX -- Kicktraq Mini

 

I pretty much said everything in this update on Kickstarter, but I’ll repeat some of it here:

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

There are still nine days to go, and while we reached the goal, the goal was basically the minimum necessary to make the product. Additional funds will help me get some additional features I have planned for BOTH versions done sooner than they would be done, otherwise.

Why else should you back it now?

The discount! $14.99 off the regular price (more if you back the combined package).

Also, Beta! Only Kickstarter backers will have access to beta versions. There may be a pre-order (I have to figure out if this is possible with my shopping cart provider), but it will not be discounted, and there will not be a public beta.

Again, my thanks go out to everyone that’s backed the campaign, or that has told their friends about it, or have posted or shared on social media. It wouldn’t have happened without you!

Grim Repo Files, TrackerBox, Writing

TrackerBox Mac Kickstarter: 15 Days To Go, Writing Challenge, & Patreon

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TrackerBox Mac - Track Your Book Sales on OSX -- Kicktraq Mini

The title says it all, really. This is pretty amazing. Just having a real opportunity to make TrackerBox Mac a reality is something I’ve been working toward for a long time. As a Windows user, myself, I don’t have a good reason to make TrackerBox for Mac, other than the regular inquiries I get, and a desire to be able to tell them, “Yes!” TrackerBox basically makes enough money to cover its costs, and I don’t see that changing, much. It isn’t a big money play for me. It’s about being able to help people, and I know it helps people.

Writing Challenge

I’ve taken on a challenge with a writer friend of mine, Michael Warren Lucas, to write three novels in three months. Writing a novel in a month isn’t exactly something new to me. The vast majority of Shattered was written in a month, and the same is true for a couple other books. The trick will be doing it three times in a row.

I’ll be attempting to write three new Grim Repo books, with the goal of getting them released in the first half of next year. It’ll be fun, it’ll be nerve-wracking, and I can’t wait to see what happens to Grimm and his crew.

You can follow along on twitter by searching the hash-tag #idiotwriterchallenge. If you’re crazy like us, you can join in!

Patreon

In line with the challenge, I’ve started a Patreon page. If you don’t know what Patreon is, it’s a place where you can support me directly for a couple bucks a month, and get some nifty rewards while doing it. Among the rewards, I’m giving patrons early access to drafts, copies of books, access to a monthly Google Hangout Q&A, and other potentially nifty things.

This month, you’ll get my new novella Making Up Lost Time. No, there’s no link, because it’s not available yet! But here’s the cover!

If you like my books, if you like what I’m doing, Patreon is a way you can directly help me do more of it!

Become a Patron!

Grim Repo Files, TrackerBox

The TrackerBox Kickstarter Rolls Past 40% and an Interview

TrackerBox Mac - Track Your Book Sales on OSX -- Kicktraq Mini

After five days, the TrackerBox Kickstarter is sitting at 43% funded, which is awesome! That first day, the first hour, when I sat and watched it sit at 0% really got my head spinning, thinking that it would never get funded, but it’s on a good trajectory, and I’m pretty confident it will get funded.

Still, I need all the help I can get in getting the word out to authors and small publishers, especially those like me who like to hide under rocks.

With that in mind, here’s an interview I did with Blackbird Publishing about TrackerBox that might help people understand what it is.

There’s also a question about more Grim Repo at the end. I won’t spoil it, though.

TrackerBox

TrackerBox Mac Kickstarter is Live!

It’s been a long time coming. The Kickstarter for the Mac version of TrackerBox is live, and I’m excited to be able to finally say yes when people ask me if they can use TrackerBox on a Mac. It will only happen if the Kickstarter funds, so if you use a Mac and you want TrackerBox, make sure you back it at a slight discount, and then tell all of your friends to back it, too.

For more information on TrackerBox, you can go to the TrackerBox Kickstarter page, or you can visit the StoryBox Software website.

Please, don’t wait to back it. If it doesn’t reach it’s goal, I can’t make the software, and with every project I’ve seen on Kickstarter, if it doesn’t go well early on, it doesn’t go well at all.